


Life Itself

by Straccia_Tella



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drugs are bad kids, F/M, Young Haggar, honerva's (pov), so it's honerva, the start of all the madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 12:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13764384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straccia_Tella/pseuds/Straccia_Tella
Summary: Nothing was working. The doctors couldn't tell her what was ailing Kova, and nobody was going to even try to change anything. So Honerva has to find a cure on her own, no matter what price she had to pay.





	Life Itself

Honerva was restless as her fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, her eyes scanning over lines of data that was being collected from the fissure in the past hour. She had been able to rebuild her lab after the dark creature destroyed it just a couple of days before and she refused to be anywhere else.

Compared to Voltron, the information she was gathering may even be more than the giant mecha Alfor had created. In fact, she felt she was onto something greater than anything he or the other Altean alchemists could ever begin to comprehend. Ever since marrying Zarkon, she was allowed to freely indulge in her research to her satisfaction, unlike back home where everyone seemed content to stay in certain barriers. They would have shied away, saying how this kind of research could be lethal, but she was never one to retreat. If there were boundaries before them, she’d be the one to overcome it and expand their horizon.

After the incident with the creature from the other reality, her work had become infinitely more interesting. If the creature answered her call, then that should mean there are more of them out there. How many more of them could she find? How will she find them? She had to find the source of it all, even if it made her sick.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Kova whom she greeted warmly and let her cat jump up beside her, not noticing her companion wobble as he steadied himself. As she absently ran a hand through his fur, she felt something was off. She stopped working and turned to look at her pet.

Had he gotten thinner? She was sure he had been fine a few days before, and he was usually well fed. She tried not to think about it so much, but decided to keep a closer eye on Kova, just in case.

 

 

Four days had passed, and each day, Kova seemed to be getting worse. He would hardly eat, and wouldn’t be able to move for vargas at a time. After the second day, she knew something was wrong, and it was killing her that she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her beloved pet.

Honerva had taken him to get looked at, but even the best vet that they had on Daibazaal gave her the same response as everyone else. Kova was sick, that much they could find, but they didn’t know how else to treat him besides recommending a change of diet and lots of rest. She hated feeling so useless during times like these. She should be able to do something with all of the knowledge she possessed, not sitting around and waiting for something to happen.

  
She had made a makeshift bed for Kova beside her work space so she could watch him, but that only made working that much harder. Every other quintant she was checking on him, and every time it made her heart sink. His fur was falling off in small clumps whenever he attempted to stand up and stretch. His eyes were becoming glossy, and whenever he tried to get her attention with a low meow, it would come out as a hoarse cough, signaling a pain that she couldn’t treat.

  
All she could do was gently pet him, feeling only a slight purr coming from his weakening body.

  
“Has he been getting any better?” An assistant asked as they delivered Honerva news about Voltron’s newest conquest and Zarkon heading back to Daibazaal soon.

  
“No…” She replied with a bitter tone as she rubbed her eyes. “Every time I tried to get him looked at, everyone told me what I already know. “Change his diet, and be sure to give him plenty of rest”. He’s dying, and no one is giving me any results of the cause!”

  
“Perhaps Kova is simply old?” The assistant ventured nervously, noticing Honerva’s hand curling tightly into a fist on her lab table.

  
Honerva wanted to argue that Kova couldn’t have been dying because of age. When she had brought him to Daibazaal, he was only about three years old and they’ve lived here for about four years. A cat his age back on Altea wouldn’t be having these symptoms at this age, and Daibazaal wasn’t too different from Altea. Besides the dark creatures appearing almost a week ago, Daibazaal’s atmosphere and land shouldn’t be affecting Kova to this extent.

Her thoughts came to a sudden halt, and something began creeping into the back of her mind. She could feel her pulse calm down for the first time in days, and her eyes widened in realization.

  
“...Yes. Perhaps you’re right,” she said to her assistant. “If you have nothing else to tell me, please leave.”

  
The assistant bowed respectfully and left the room as Honerva eyed the fissure glowing brightly as bubbles of quintessence floated in the air. She turned her head to find Alfor’s experiment that had been testing the powers of quintessence on a machine, now broken because of the dark creatures. While she held some small disdain for the small project, she thought about how it had been running for over a year without any drops in revolutions per dobosh. An idea began to form in her mind, an idea she knew Alfor would have probably been against if she brought it up. That only made her more determined to see her theory play out.

  
If one drop of quintessence was powerful enough to run a machine without any drops in speed for an entire year… could the same be said for a living creature?

  
She spent the rest of the day running diagnostics on a vial of quintessence that she extracted, trying to find anything that she could use to help Kova. Upon closer inspection, she found something beyond anything she had expected. By nightfall, she had a small dosage prepared in a syringe-needle and gently scratched Kova’s ears. If this experiment proved a success, who knows what else she could uncover. Something even more powerful than Voltron.

  
Honerva looked at the yellow glowing quintessence, her doubts began to slowly surface. Would this really be worth it? Kova was laying beneath a scanner to check for any vital changes one she begins to inject the quintessence into his system. She stroked his fur one final time, listening him purr quietly in content, and she began to slowly push the needle in. She watched the liquid drain into her cat and waited.  
“Beginning quintessence experiment, test one.”

 

 

Zarkon walked to Honerva’s lab, knowing that his wife would be elbow deep in her research, but he wanted to greet her nonetheless. He hadn’t heard from her since he had left with the other paladins in order to spread peace across the galaxy. After his last mission, he craved the quite that Honerva provided to a varga spent on diplomatic meetings. When he entered the lab area, he was surprised to find his wife not at her station pouring over the data she had collected during that day.

  
“Honerva?” He called, his voice echoing around the empty room.

  
He looked around the room a little closer and on his left, he saw Honerva slumped against the wall, with a large lump of cloth wrapped in her lap. His mind immediately assumed the worst as he dashed over to her side.

  
“Honerva!” Zarkon yelled, cradling his wife’s face in his hands, his heart beating with fear. “My love! Wake up, please, wake up!”

  
He stroked her cheeks and her eyes began to slowly open, registering her husband’s face.  
Her voice croaked a bit as she spoke.

  
“Husband… you’ve returned. I’m sorry for frightening you, I must have fallen asleep.”

  
“Are you sure you’re alright? Should I call for a doctor?” He put a hand on her back in order to steady her so she could sit up.

  
“No, I’m fine. But right now, there’s something I must show you. It’s what I’ve been working on for the past week.”

  
Zarkon watched as his wife unraveled the cloth and when he saw Kova’s fur, he looked at Honerva with worry. He knew how much the cat mean to his wife, despite his initial reaction to meeting Kova.

  
“Has Kova passed?”

  
“No, he was close to, until I began treating him.”

  
Once all of the cloth was off Kova slowly poked his head out, purring at Zarkon.

  
“He looks fine to me,”Zarkon noted, the cat hadn’t changed much since he last saw it, as far as he knew.

  
“All of the vets I visited told me there was no way for them to treat Kova, and they had no cure. That’s until I saw Alfor’s old experiment, and it gave me an idea. Since nothing else seemed to be working, I decided to inject him with quintessence.” Kova nuzzled his head against her chest and he patted his head. “It’s barely been a full spicolian movement since I injected him, and he’s already shown major signs of improvement. Before he could barely stand or consume his food, but now, look at him.”

  
She smiled as Kova jumped out of her arms and onto her shoulder where he used to sit. While he did look a little thinner, Zarkon wouldn’t have been able to tell that Kova was on the verge of death.

  
“The picture of health,” Honerva said, pulling up a screen for him to see. “All of these are documentations of my experiment, of other possibilities I have yet to uncover.”

  
Zarkon compared the video images to Kova’s current state. He knew quintessence had the potential to be powerful fuel for his ships, but bringing back living beings from the brink of death?

  
“Incredible. So quintessence isn’t just used for energy?” He asked.

  
“Yes, thanks to Kova, I’ve come to the conclusion that quintessence itself isn’t just energy,” Honerva’s eyes glimmered with a spark Zarkon was familiar with, it was the kind she had when she made a new discovery or breakthrough. “It’s the very essence of life.”

Zarkon drank in this news, trying to wrap his head around this new form of power.

  
“Does Alfor know about this breakthrough?”

  
“No,” Honerva said almost sternly. “Alfor would have never realized its full potential. He and the others would have been too afraid to dig deeper than I have, to reach into a vast abyss of knowledge that’s just from a small fissure. With my research, we could find something even more valuable than Voltron that could make the Galra Empire unstoppable.”

  
“We could live forever,” Zarkon realized, while Galra’s had long lives like the Alteans, the thought of possibly gaining immortality was something he couldn’t help but want.

  
“My work has barely begun. If I could just look a little deeper, imagine how we could discover beneath the surface just waiting for us.” Honerva turned to her husband, her face set with determination. “I must look further into it, no matter the cost.”

  
“And you shall. Find all that you can, I’ll be right beside you.” Zarkon replied, despite something telling him how destructive this kind of idea could turn out to be. But the power and the possibilities of quintessence that were presented before him overpowered his better judgment.

  
Honerva nodded as Kova purred deeply, his eyes trained on the small fissure that had given him life, glowing like the sun. Warm, but dangerous to those who dare to venture too close. 

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I low key shipped Haggar and Zarkon, and they actually became canon. They were such a sweet couple before the quintessence began corrupting them further.


End file.
